Material and Method: A randomized control trial was conducted. The authors recruited 13 families to a family therapy group and 11 to psychoeducation group. Each group received six sessions of intervention. The effectiveness of the interventions was assessed using the Chulalongkorn Family Inventory, the Clinical Global Impression Severity Scale (CGI-S), the Personal and Social Performance Scale-Thai version, the Self-esteem visual analog scale (SVAS), the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale-Thai version (RSES-T), and the KKU-Depression Inventory. The effectiveness of each intervention was measured four times: a) baseline, b) one month after the fourth session (the third month), c) one month after the last session (the fifth month), and d) one year after the last session (the sixteenth month).

Results: Both interventions helped to improve the perception of family functioning, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms among family members, and decreased the severity of symptoms and improved social functioning in patients with schizophrenia. The family therapy group had more significant results on the improvements of the SVAS, the RSES-T, and the CGI-S score.

Conclusion: Both interventions produced positive results in almost all of the follow-up measurements, but the family therapy group had more significant results, particularly with respect to self-esteem scores.

Keywords: Satir, Family therapy, Family function, Depression, Schizophrenia, Self-esteem